The Underground Literary Alliance presents literature from the underground.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Poetry and Stories by Carissa Halston

The Powers of Self-Delusion

Have you ever had a one night stand?

I know what you're thinking.One night stand?Jesus, those are terrible.

They never turn out well.

It'll only lead to trouble.

Yeah, you should definitely steer clear of those one night stands.

Well, it's too late for me.

I've already had one.

With the most wonderful man in the whole wide world.

We're going to be together forever.

You'll see.

We met at this bar.

And he was really charming.

My friend, Allison, says that all the guys I end up falling for are invariably "really charming."But he was.The real deal.I mean it.

Anyway...

So he asks me.

"Can I walk you home?"

And I'm all like,

"I don't know.You're a stranger and my mom always told me to never talk to strangers."

"Don't worry.I was voted Most Likely to Take Home to Mom and Dad when I was in high school."

How's about that for credentials?

So we walked home.

Except I was wearing high heels and I was a little tipsy, so I had to lean on him a bit.

He walked...I hobbled.

So, we get to my apartment and I'm like,

"Here we are."

And we stare at each other and I'm having trouble remembering this part because it was kind of blurry already, but add memory to that and it's a fuzzy memory of a blurry vision.

I remember what he said though.

That I remember.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?"

And I said:

"Mighty presumptuous of you."

But then we were kissing and there was a fumbling for my keys and the door was open and we were inside.

See?I told you.Charming.

I have never been kissed like I was kissed by this man.

It was all very immediate and dire.

Like his life depended on it.

Like our life depended on it.

I remember the sex in little bits and pieces.

There were good parts and not so good parts.

The foreplay was infinitely better than the actual act.

In fact, the sex itself was brief and harried.

Anyway...

When I woke up this morning, he was gone.

Initially, I was miffed.

But he left me something.

It's a book.

But not the kind that's written.

The kind that you write.

In.

I had a few reserves about reading these things about someone I didn't know.

Would I want someone reading my innermost thoughts?

And then I thought about when I was twelve.

I had a diary with a lock on it.

I didn't always keep it locked.

Only if I had written something that wasn't for peering eyes...

Or something I was ashamed of.

But if it was unlocked and someone else read it, that was my own fault.

Right?

There was no lock on this book.

So I opened it.

Pages of confessions, longings and laments lay before me.

Should I read them?

Could I?

I could.

I did.

I read how he was in love.

A girl whose name is never mentioned.

He envisioned them creating a life together.

They'd have kids.

They'd vacation every year in Maine.

They'd be happy.

And I wondered, idly, if that girl could be me.

Did he write all of this last night?

Did he leave it here for me to happen upon?

Did he agonize over leaving me alone?

Did he love me?

I read those pages again and again.

I relished and memorized certain passages.

And I knew.

Yes.

It was me.

It is me.

We'll be married in Spain.

We'll honeymoon in Greece.

We'll wander the world together discovering little things about other people and each other.

And we'll be happy.

Forever.

A knock is heard at the door.

"It's him," she whispers.

She holds her hand on the knob.Frozen.

She steels herself to turn it.

The door is open.

It is him.

She thinks that standing there, in that exact position, he looks just like he did that time they were on the beach.Catching fish illegally.She wonders if he remembers...

They face each other.

"Hey," he says.

"Hi," she replies.

"I think..." he says.

"I love you," she thinks.

"I left something here last night," he finishes.

"Oh?" she says.

"Yeah.Small black book.Something of a journal, really."

She smiles at the thought of the kind words he spoke in it.

"I was wondering if you'd realize it was gone," she says.

She goes to get it and returns to the door with it in her hand.She wants him to ask if she's read it.If she knows how he feels.

He doesn't.

She sees an absence in his face.He looks directly at the book.

Slowly, painfully, she relinquishes it.

He takes it.

As soon as it leaves her hands, her memories of him fade.

"Thanks," he smiles.

"Yeah," she returns wistfully.

He turns and walks away.A memory tugs at her.Did she know him?

Watching him leave, she feels bereft of something but is unsure of what.

Fun in Garages (Vodka not Included)

Hanging out in parking garages

The well-off well-to-dos

Either sneer or clutch their wallets

Scared for your car?

That’s all we can take from you.

The material

The tangible

You, with your nose in the air,

Taking our dignity

and

our pride

and

our ability to overcome.

Is it because I’m drinking vodka out of a travel mug?

The Day Job

When I was younger, my grandfather retired from his job of thirty-two years and they gave him a gold watch.My mom said he should’ve stolen something from the office.It would’ve been worth more, she’d said.What I got from that is, what’s really important isn’t what you put into a job. It’s what you take away from it.Me?I steal wedding rings.

There’s more to it than that.I mean, I provide a service for the lonely and loathsome.A little company, a little ambiance.Maybe some small talk and then it’s down to business.Then again, I guess that can be said for any job.However, the fellatio is an added bonus.A whore by any other name would smell as…

Anyway, just so you know, I make my own rates.The basic wine and dine escort service, no touchy is $50.Suitor pays for dinner.

Cutting to the chase, a blow job is $75, a rim job is $150.Just sex, your average mount-me-like-a-pony sex is $250.Oral+sex is $400.And if you want me to stay the night (i.e. sex+whatever, whatever being anal sex, golden showers, fetish, et al.) is $750.But, yeah, I steal wedding rings.

I think of it as vacation time.I accrue enough; I can take them to the pawnshop and take a week off.It’s only backfired once.

I could not get this guy’s ring off.He woke up and backhanded me right across the room.Stiffed me the night’s wages too.I was out of work for a week.

I don’t see what the big deal is…if the ring was so fucking important, if that symbol of his marriage meant so much to him, why was he with me?

People are so fickle.

An ‘Untitled’ Evening in Early June

Children pass by,

walking,

not running.

"We don't run outside, William.

Come and stand by Mommy.

No, William.

You can't sit on Mommy's lap.

It would wrinkle her skirt."

These children,

forbidden from running,

they were born wearing khakis.

They'll always have

designer

hair.

They were tailored to match their parents.

A woman strolls by and admires the iron tree.

I reiterate...

Iron.

Tree.

'It's pretty, but $40,000?

Maybe some other time.'

Her shoes closely resembled

black licorice rope.

The phrase,

"Just because no one understands you

doesn't make you an artist"

comes to mind.

The guy with the

blue-collar

haircut

and

full-sleeve tattoos

keeps trying to make eye contact.

We seek out our own kind.

A tray passes at eyelevel.

Laden with food.

The M.F.K. Fisher

kind of food.

The kind of food rendered in

still life paintings.

I look around.

360 degrees.

This is not an escape.

This is how the rich live.

This is just a Thursday in June.

They're trying so hard.

And yet...

The most interesting people here are

the cater-waiters.

Couth

I flip off almost everyone I come in contact with.

It’s a disease.

It’s my gift to the world.

It’s my silent wish that, upon my offering, that person would turn tail, run to the nearest closed room, and fuck themselves.

I flip off my girlfriend every morning.She wakes up, showers and puts her bra on to tease me.She knows as soon as it’s on, I just want to rip it off of her.

I flip her off from under the blanket before she leans in to kiss me goodbye.

I flip off the guy at the bus station with the unnaturally hot girl on his arm because his hair lays the way I wish mine would.

I flip off every girl I see with pants or shorts that have words like “Cheer” or “Swimmer” printed on the ass.I wish they’d be more honest in their merchandising and print something more relevant to that part of our anatomy.

Words like “stinky” and “peachfuzz.”

Phrases like, “Do not enter,” and “Place tongue here.”

I make a mental note to flip off the manufacturer of those pants, should we ever meet.

I flip off every person who asks me if they can exit the shithole where I’m employed by the door clearly marked, “exit.”I flip them off under the counter so my boss doesn’t see it.

I flip off my boss with both hands because he deserves it.

I flip off every person I encounter with McDonald’s on their breath and a Wal-Mart bag in their hand.

My sister bought me a T-shirt with a picture of a hand with the middle finger extended.I felt it took away from my message, so, after she left, I flipped her off through the door and put the shirt through the paper shredder.

I just want to make a difference…spread a little joy.

Carissa Halston, 24, is the writer/director of Cleavage (a

collection of one-act plays) and contributing editor at the online literary

magazine, apt.Her work has been published at Unlikely Stories v1.0, Fables,

Open Wide Magazine and apt.She has upcoming work in both the online and

Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories, interviews and poetry reviews have appeared in over one hundred and fifty print and electronic publications. He has received three Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing and most recently read his poetry on National Public Radio’s Theme and Variations, a program that is broadcast over seventy NPR affiliates. He is the author of THE FATHERS WE FIND, a novel based on memory. Ries is also the author of five books of poetry — the most recent entitled, The Last Time which was released by The Moon Press in Tucson, Arizona. He is the poetry editor for Word Riot (www.wordriot.org), a contributing editor to both Andwerve (www.andwerve.com) and Pass Port Journal (www.passportjournal.org). He is on the board of the Woodland Pattern Bookstore (www.woodlandpattern.org) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most recently he has been appointed to the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literarti.net/Ries/

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Poetry by William Taylor Jr.

Portrait of a Woman

She had skin like leather the cruelest mouth I’d ever seen and eyes as hard as the streets on which she walked everything she owned in a plastic crate beneath her arm an ancient radio screaming jazz as she walked down Eddy St. on a Sunday afternoon her clothes ragged and ill fitting but her legs still as beautiful as any that ever were and those eyes meeting mine daring me to say so.

And No One Left to Remember

These days my wife is troubled by the slow and ongoing death of our earth

and all the reasons for it

and how the president and nobody else much cares.

It keeps her from sleep.

She does not believe in god but sometimes wishes that she did.

The thought of every beautiful thing gone

and no one left to remember.

She asks me why we should be bothered to do anything at all

and I don’t have much of an answer

except that I imagine there must be some kind of beauty here in these tiny moments

the fact that they exist at all is maybe reason enough.

I think about it and I don’t think about it.

I’ve never known what to do about anything.

I think tomorrow I will start drinking early.

Your Eyes Like The Sun

I have no god but a decent bloody mary on an otherwise empty afternoon does its part to calm the troubled soul

and I imagine others too must weary of trying to hold the world together

on a day when you can’t get too numb too fast

on a day when all the murders and suicides make perfect sense

when the surface of things peels away in flakes and the void shines through

burning your eyes like the sun

like the flashlight of a motherfucking cop when you know you are

guilty.

William Taylor Jr. was born in Bakersfield, California and currently lives in San Francisco with his wife and a cat named Trouble. His poetry and stories have appeared widely in the small press and on the internet. He is the author of numerous chapbooks and his work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His latest book is So Much Is Burning published by sunnyoutside Press. A book of his collected poems is forthcoming from Centennial Press. He will one day be the last man in America not to own a cell phone.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

Poetry byBradley Mason Hamlin

Poetry byBradley Mason Hamlin

Bukowski’s Shadow StrikesThe only people who may or may not call themselves writers that sufferfrom the shadow of Bukowskiare the onesnot yet litwith enough of their own lightningdoesn’t matterwhat a stupid reviewer saysyou should be so lucky to even get compared to the bestbut can you make the wild puppetdance on your own?can you carvefrom your flesha blood & gut creaturemade of pulpand ink?Bukowski left us the words “don’t try”on his grave markerjust another jokeyou’ve got to do a whole lot morethan simply tryyou’ve got to be the biggestmonster in townand stomp the buildingswith style--if you’re looking goodgoing the distancewith super atomic monkeysand sex-crazed naked robotsnobodybut nobodywill be able to cast a shadow over the wine bottleof your heartleast of allthe uninterested ghostof Mr. Bukowski.

JOHNNY CASH HAIKU

Downtrodden, he said

A man shouldn’t have to work

So hard for his bread.

SELF AUTOPSY

my familymoved back and forth

from west L.A. to east side

depending on my father’s finances

was born in a hospital in Los Angeles

and lived northeast

in Highland Park until seven

then moved to Santa Monica

--really another world—

then back to HP when 12

fighting cholos

on the way home from school

experimenting with every drug available

mom drinking herself to death

in front of me

dad gone all hours

trying to hustle Hollywood

violent brother

under Christian mind control …

Mom dead; me 15

Dad and I moved in with one of his friends

near the Chinese Theatre

then conned enough frog skins to live

in Marina Del Rey for 7 months

going to Santa Monica High school

couldn’t cut it there

too different from east side education

joined Navy and sailed away

at the age of 17

traveled west coast of world

landed in Sacramento when 20

started college as psychology major

got bored

started writing at 25

switched major to English

graduated from UC Davis

starving student; starving artist

started the process of working horrible jobs

singing/writing for punk rock bands

and eventually moving from silly lyrics

to reading/writing poetry …

turned 42 on November 20th

and I’m still not a rock star.

Bradley Mason Hamlin lives in Sacramento, California. His poetry, shortstories, and articles have appeared in several small press books, magazines,and literary journals in print and on line. Brad & his wife Nicky ownMystery Island Publications, literary pop culture venue. Recent workincludes the publication of Tough Company by singer/songwriter Tom Russell,featuring: Charles Bukowski. Brad is also the creator of the metaphysicalcrime series: Intoxicated Detective. For more information about Hamlin andother wild things—visit: www.mysteryisland.net